Earls Kitchen + Bar — Restaurant in Calgary

Re: Barlow Trail location

This review is about a specific dish mostly, however, my experiences trying to order this dish in the last month or so, makes me not want to return for other dishes as well, simply because I feel I've had to many headaches around getting my order right, and have lost money and time trying to correct it.

It should be noted I do like this restaurant, and the staff have been lovely, however too many times, I've ordered my favourite dish and had it come out wrong or with an issue around it. To the point I don't think I will be ordering it from this location again.

I am a dairy free gal, due to allergies, and so when I can actually get a pizza, and a pizza that is yummy, I am psyched!!

The first time I had the kale and mushroom pizza w vegan cheese was in person. It was delightful, fluffy, and so good I craved it again within a week. Got it on happy hour special as well so it was roughly $14.

I decided to order it again via takeout one evening when I was late leaving work. I paid for it online and added a tip as well (almost $30 total.) Unfortunately when I picked up and got home to eat, I found out the pizza was too burnt to consume.

Because it was late at night and there was no time to go back, I decided to eat it anyway...or try to. However, because they made it on the gluten free crust (oops, didn't mean to order that, if I did) AND it was burnt to a crisp, it was beyond edible. I was like trying to eat a plastic plate. Brittle. Hard. Snapped into shards. Made my teeth hurt. Just horrible. Tried microwaving with a wet paper towel....there was no salvaging this sad pizza.

So I did call in and let the staff know it was really, rather inedible. Kelsey took my call and was really helpful and kind. And whilst I didn't get the full refund (I had tipped on my takeout order, oops) she did put a credit on file for next time. Yay!

A week later I decided to try again, I called in my order, as there was no way to use the credit online. Unfortunately the staff had no record of my credit, however manager Emma(?) was helpful and gave me the kale+mushroom pizza on REGULAR crust w vegan cheese for free ($23). This is what I originally wanted. Yay! I was happy.

In another week, short on time I ordered it for take out again. Kale and mushroom pizza, vegan cheese, regular crust. Order goes through, but they don't have regular crust and offer gluten free. No thank you, terrible. So they refund.

A week later a try again, same order. Vegan cheese. Regular crust. $23. All good.

I arrive to pick up, wait a bit. Turns out they gave my order away with someone else's takeout and will have to remake it. No problem, I'll come back in 15-20. When I get back and grab my order, I head out and start driving away only to discover it's again, burnt and made with the gluten free crust. Noo! But I'm short on time and patience at this point so I didnt go back.

Somewhat edible this time but that crust.... It's just bad. It clearly burns easily and is quite hard to chew. It makes for a very sad pizza, especially for $25 (they up charge $2 for gluten aware)

I figure at this point, I should stop trying to chase the magic of the first pizza and give up. I am also over the rigamarole of it. Maybe the other dishes are much better, and I'm just having terrible luck.

The REGULAR crust vegan kale and mushroom pizza was fab that one or two times I've had it, but every other time I've tried to order, it's been absolutely more trouble than it's worth. And for $23-$25 a pizza (plus the money lost on the tip, and the difference in price that I wasn't credited for gluten free vs regular) it's not worth it at all.

Restaurant itself is nice, staff are lovely and helpful. Just a string of bad luck trying to have the pizza I craved. Bummer. It puts a bad taste in the...

I remember the first time I met Lyndon James Balla. It was a quiet Tuesday morning at Earl’s Barlow, the kind of shift where the clatter of breakfast dishes echoed like a metronome in the back kitchen. I was but a dishwasher at the time, working at Boston Pizza. He showed up with a backpack, unlaced boots, and the kind of wide-eyed innocence you only see in someone who’s never loaded a Hobart before.

“Dishwashing ain’t glamorous,” I told him, pointing to the mountain of plates caked in hollandaise and regret. “But it’s the backbone of the kitchen. If the line cooks are soldiers, we’re the guys laying the roads.”

Lyndon didn’t flinch.

For the next three months, I trained him in the ancient arts. The rinse-spin-slide. The power-scrub-and-spray. The elusive two-handed rack-stack. He learned to pre-soak with precision, to stack pans like architectural wonders, and most importantly, he learned to respect the grind.

And then… came The Incident.

It was a humid Friday night. After a long section of training I had to leave Earl’s Kitchen + Bar Barlow to make the perilous journey home. That’s when I heard the low growl.

At first I thought it was just some drunk raccoon. But no. It was a full-grown cougar, yellow eyes glowing, crouched on top of the garbage bins, muscles rippling like a nightmare in slow motion. I froze.

It leapt.

I didn’t even have time to scream.

Suddenly, a CRASH!

There he was. Lyndon James Balla, still wearing his dish apron, dripping with lemon-scented suds, wielding two oversized baking trays like shields.

With a battle cry that sounded like a mix of “YEEEAAAHH!” and “HYGIENE FIRST!”, Lyndon threw the first tray like a discus, clocking the cougar mid-air. It yelped, landed awkwardly, and tried to scramble up.

Too late.

Lyndon dove like an linebacker, pinning the beast down with a steel speed rack while yelling, “YOU DON’T MESS WITH THE BACK OF HOUSE!”

The cougar bolted into the night, traumatized.

I sat there, stunned, heart pounding. Lyndon extended a hand to help me up.

“Boss,” he said, “you taught me to wash dishes. Least I could do is save your life.”

Since that night, I don’t just see Lyndon as a dishwasher. No.

He’s a guardian of cleanliness. A hero of hygiene. A savior with suds.

The food was also...

We attempted to eat here for supper a few days ago (August 17th), but encountered long waits for drinks and food, and an absent waitress. Numerous other tables around us experienced the same long waits and even had to send their food back because it was cold. I'll note that the restaurant had many empty tables.

An approximate timeline: 7:15: Arrived, told there would be about a 10 minute wait to eat inside. 7:30: Sat at our table. Found dirty glasses. 7:45: Our waitress finally comes to our table to give us water. I point out the dirty glasses. She leaves to get new ones. 7:50: She comes back with clean glasses and takes our order. 8:05: Our waitress stops by our table and notes "Oh, you're still waiting for your food? Let me go check on that." 8:15: I flag our waitress down to ask about our food. She tells us that one of our meals (an impossible burger) came out looking really weird so the kitchen is remaking it. 8:25: I flag down our waitress again to ask about our food. Her response is "Oh, do you have somewhere you need to be?" She goes to check on it again. 8:30: Our waitress comes back and lets us know that there was a mix-up in the kitchen, but that they can remake my burger now, it will just be another 5 minutes and on the house. We decide to leave at this point, not trusting that it will actually be 5 minutes and also being concerned for the state of the other meal (was it just sitting under a warmer for the past who knows how long?)

In the midst of all this, we saw someone finally get their food around 8:25 when they were sat at their table when we first arrived around 7:15. A different table near us had to send 2 of their meals back because they were cold. I believe it took about 15 minutes for them to receive...